The Top 10 Financial Links Of The Day

Washington Post – Workers who have lost their jobs but are not currently looking for new ones are not counted in the Department of Labor’s much-watched unemployment rate. Economists say the longer these workers stay out of the job market, the harder it will be for them to find employment, creating a vicious cycle that can spiral for months or longer.

Hot Air – Video: Political leader who couldn’t pass a budget lectures on fiscal responsibility

Weekly Standard - We have now gotten to the point — as I noted yesterday — where if national defense, interstate highways, national parks, homeland security, and all other discretionary programs somehow became absolutely free, we’d still have a budget deficit. The White House Office of Management and Budget projects that in the current fiscal year (2011), mandatory spending alone will exceed all federal receipts. So even if we didn’t spend a single cent on discretionary programs, we still wouldn’t be able to balance our budget this year — let alone pay off any of the $14 trillion in debt that we have already accumulated.

Zero Hedge – With the world’s attention diverted to Japan for the past week, WTI managed to drop substantially trading just above $96. Well, just as we predicted a few days ago observing the ongoing developments in Bahrain and Libya, and the imminent realization that Japan will need to boost its petrochemical imports due to drop in nuclear power output, crude spike by the most in over a week, in what was virtually a straight line touching $102/bbl and closing just below.